"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped," Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper #29.

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms," Thomas Jefferson, according to the Library of Congress.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials," George Mason, according to George Mason University.

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms ...The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard, against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible," Hubert H. Humphrey, according to George Mason.

No people who have lost their freedom have ever gotten it back. Think about that.